The act of creation is a privilege that let us to shape your anguish, your dreams, your desires, your phobias.

Javier Huecas (Prat de Llobregat, 1958) felt from a very young age the need to capture his inner world through masks, drawings and paintings. He studied Fine Arts in Seville, Barcelona and Almeria. This last city is where he has lived since 1984.

His early work can fit into the pictorial current of the School of Paris, reflected through figuration and portraiture paintings. In his artistic evolution he has traveled through different stages, incorporating different symbolic elements of his own imagination: the warrior as a mythical figure, the wall as the limit of knowledge or the word as deception of the senses, among others.

As a sculptor he is known for his work in bronze and single-fired stoneware. The large-scale works include “Encarna”, which decorates the Plaza San Sebastián of Almería next to the parish of the same name, or the figures in front of the Apolo Theater in the same city. He has also made several sculptural series of small format, most of them figurative ones, using a rough and rusty texture that symbolize the anguish of the human being.

In these days of October and until next December a sculptural exhibition of Javier is exhibited in the Exhibition Hall of the Paraninfo of the University of Almería, entitled “Human Condition”. In the words of the vice-chancellor of University Extension and Sports, Javier is “an artist of exceptional sensitivity who, with his pessimistic and discarnate vision of the human being, makes a revision of the inherent weaknesses of the human being”.

During the summer Javier likes to paint nature using mixed technic, watercolor and pastel. The watercolor dries fast and pastel is a dry technique, which allows him to work layer by layer to achieve very rich results in terms of textures.

On experimenting with encaustic Cuní he achieved very good yields due to the fact that wáter-encaustic dries quicker, which enables to facilitate the superposition of layers of color without getting mixed. He also found an added advantage for storage, since he could place some canvases upon others without any transfer.

He began to test with very liquid paint, subsequently applying new layers with different level of dissolution, testing light on dark, dark on light and obtaining similar results to oil with the advantage that encaustic Cuní dries faster. The final result was a colorful Nature and full of light that, in his own words, is not the light of Almería but the light of his childhood

]]>http://www.encausticcuni.com/experiences-javier-huecas/feed/0Experiences – Agnes Fonghttp://www.encausticcuni.com/experiences-agnes-fong/
http://www.encausticcuni.com/experiences-agnes-fong/#commentsWed, 18 Jul 2018 15:29:16 +0000http://www.encausticcuni.com/?p=5064There was a line and I followed it. There is always a line, a thread that draws and draws. And the thread turns, it gets tangled up and finds its way again. The line grows. Behind, the beautiful drawing of life, ideas, projects. In front the thread that does not stop. The drawing that grows. […]

There was a line and I followed it. There is always a line, a thread that draws and draws. And the thread turns, it gets tangled up and finds its way again. The line grows. Behind, the beautiful drawing of life, ideas, projects. In front the thread that does not stop. The drawing that grows. And in recent years it has grown a lot, dedicating time, enlightening, illustrating.

An example of it is ‘Drawn Cities’ -Almería, Havana, Madrid … – that has allowed me to draw a map of cities where experiences, colors and customs intermingle the memory and the future. From the ‘Drawn Cities’ to the ‘Infinite Cities’. Book and coloring sheets from Almeria and Havana have been part and important projects of this illustration process.

Finding out wáter encaustic has allowed me to extend the tools of expression. Knowing a technique where drawing and color can be valued and valued without being excluded. His palette is highly alive to me; a universe of possibilities that has transformed the landscape of the ‘Drawn Cities’. Technique according to the shape? Shape that has found the technique? In any case, enough reasons to continue experimenting, tensing the thread.

This is the vision Agnes has about her work and about what painting and drawing represent for her. She is the first guest of the “Experiences Cuní” adventure, a video series that aims to describe the versatility of wax-based encaustic painting.

The different characteristics and nuances that wáter encaustic provides depend not only on the properties of the product and its formulation based in beewax and natural pigments, but specially on the use that the artist imagines for each work, the technique he chooses and the combination with other types of paint like oil or watercolor.

This occasion Agnes decided to use high dissolved encaustic to replace the ink and watercolor, materials that she usually aply in his work, to draw an abstract urban landscape, very colorful. -Every material that you experiment with will give you opportunities that you can not imagine- she comments with his eyes absorbed in the paper canves on which she does not stop giving brushstrokes.

Agnes Fong Lucero has a degree in Industrial Design from the Higher Institute of Design in Havana, Cuba. He has extensive experience in industrial and graphic design, and she has taught classes and workshops in the Institute of Design and in primary school schools. She has also made personal and collective exhibitions in Madrid, Valencia, Almería and Havana.

]]>http://www.encausticcuni.com/experiences-agnes-fong/feed/0Test in portrait with water soluble encaustic by An Weihttp://www.encausticcuni.com/test-in-portrait-with-water-soluble-encaustic-by-an-wei/
http://www.encausticcuni.com/test-in-portrait-with-water-soluble-encaustic-by-an-wei/#commentsMon, 19 Dec 2016 15:39:19 +0000http://www.encausticcuni.com/?p=4907An Wei is a Chinese emerging artist living in Madrid. Usually An paints portraits in grisaille and this time is no different, however he adds colour to one area using adhesive tape. Water soluble encaustic is a new procedure to him and he comments on how surprising the beeswax soft and velvety texture is, as […]

An Wei is a Chinese emerging artist living in Madrid. Usually An paints portraits in grisaille and this time is no different, however he adds colour to one area using adhesive tape. Water soluble encaustic is a new procedure to him and he comments on how surprising the beeswax soft and velvety texture is, as well as its pleasing scent. He stains his fingers but doesn´t have to worry since Cuní colours are non toxic and hands and paint brushes can easily be washed clean with soap and water. The artist is quick to find out that he can add layers of paint and work it into a rich and creamy empasto. He admits this paint to be like nothing he has tried before. Since he is experimenting with the new paint he attempts to scratch the surface but since he is not convinced by the effect he discards it. We can also highlight that Encaustic Cuní is rich in pigment and the beeswax binder allows for a vibrant and shiny finish.

To avoid the colour getting murky when creating empastos it is convenient to let dry paint layers before applying any more. If we proceed like this we can add as many layers as we wish. If we were to want to speed up the drying process we would only need to apply heat in the way of hot air from a hair dryer for example. The hot air would allow the faster evaporation of water present in the paint. Furthermore this procedure intensifies the saturation and vibrancy of the colours in our work which makes it a recommendable last step once we have finished painting.

We also have to take into account that the paint´s first cure happens relatively fast, that is, it dries quickly. However there is a second curing time that implies changes in the chemical components of the material and is a slower process. Since beeswax is encaustic Cuní paint´s binder, finished works are likely to suffer tiny scratches if we don´t take care when storing. This inconvenience can easily be avoided and implies only the minimum steps we´d take to preserve our work be it in any other medium. Namely, varnishing our work will ensure the surface of the painting hardens and is protected from any possible damage.

But perhaps we would prefer not to use varnish in which case Cuní paint surface will preserve its flexibility and be in this way easy to store and transport by means of scrolling if this is what we usually do. Scrolling canvass fabric or large paper sheets in this manner is perfectly viable and the paint´s flexibility when not varnished assures us it will not chip or crease. And of course the ultimate promise and guarantee of encaustic Cuní paint is that whites will not yellow in time and colours likewise won´t fade. Greco roman mural paintings are a testimony to the durability of this paint.

]]>http://www.encausticcuni.com/the-scientific-journal-analytical-methods-publishes-a-chemical-study/feed/0Article on the reconstruction of the water soluble encaustic painting technique published in Centerpoint Now (2011)http://www.encausticcuni.com/article-on-the-reconstruction-of-the-water-soluble-encaustic-painting-technique-published-in-centerpoint-now-2011/
http://www.encausticcuni.com/article-on-the-reconstruction-of-the-water-soluble-encaustic-painting-technique-published-in-centerpoint-now-2011/#commentsThu, 28 Jul 2011 11:18:22 +0000http://www.encausticcuni.com/?p=2480Article on the reconstruction of the water soluble encaustic painting technique published in Centerpoint Now (2011), a publication of The World Council of Peoples for the United Nations.

]]>http://www.encausticcuni.com/article-on-the-reconstruction-of-the-water-soluble-encaustic-painting-technique-published-in-centerpoint-now-2011/feed/0Exhibition on the rediscovery of the Greco-Roman water-soluble encaustic paint at Cooper Unionhttp://www.encausticcuni.com/exhibition-on-the-rediscovery-of-the-greco-roman-water-soluble-encaustic-paint-at-cooper-union/
http://www.encausticcuni.com/exhibition-on-the-rediscovery-of-the-greco-roman-water-soluble-encaustic-paint-at-cooper-union/#commentsMon, 28 Mar 2011 11:21:18 +0000http://www.encausticcuni.com/?p=2487The exhibition ?The Rediscovery of the Long-lost Painting Technique of Ancient Greece and Rome: Water-soluble Encaustic? New York, opened on October 13 at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. The exhibition presented the results of the comparative chemical study of Roman paintings on wall and wood, and of […]

]]>The exhibition ?The Rediscovery of the Long-lost Painting Technique of Ancient Greece and Rome: Water-soluble Encaustic? New York, opened on October 13 at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York.

The exhibition presented the results of the comparative chemical study of Roman paintings on wall and wood, and of water-soluble encaustic paintings, showing the similarity of both painting techniques. These results indicate that Roman artists used an unknown so far encaustic paint composed of beeswax and potassium soap.

The study has been carried out by Pedro Cuní at the Cooper Union Chemistry Department under the supervision and guidance of John Bové, Chairman, and Ruben Savizky, Professor. The exhibition, under the auspices of the Consulate of Spain in New York, showed paintings by José Cuní and Pedro Cuní executed with water-soluble encaustic, and posters showing the results of the chemical study.